With development of internet technologies, applications of online social network widely use information saved in an online account (e.g., an E-mail account or an instant messenger account) as a source to obtain interpersonal connection data of the account holder. Firstly, user may register an account in a communication platform, such as an E-mail box provider (e.g., Google for Gmail and Yahoo! for Yahoo! email) or an instant message provider (e.g., Google for Google Hangouts, and Tencent for WeChat), in which the account may include a contacts list. Then, the user can communicate with the contacts in contacts list through a communication application (e.g., Google Hangouts and WeChat) supported by the communication platform.
The contacts in the contacts list are usually added manually by the user, process of which may be: the user first becomes aware of an account number of a contact and inputs the account number into the communication application (hereinafter “the application”); the application sends to the communication platform (hereinafter “the platform”) an addition request message, which carries along with an account number of the user's account and the account number of the contact; the platform then add the account number of the contact into the contacts list contained in the user's account in accordance with the addition request.
It is necessary for a user to get aware of the account number of the contact before add the contact into contacts list; but generally the amount of account number that the user can obtain is usually restricted. Therefore, it is difficult for the user to expand the contacts quickly and effectively merely by adding account he/she is aware of without helping from other tools.